[I copied the critical essays from the other page here, since the original page had gotten too long once I added the poetry. les]
Summary: Stopping by Woods
The speaker thinks about who owns the woods that he or she is passing through, and is fairly sure of knowing the landowner. However, the owner's home is far away in the village, and thus he is physically incapable of seeing the speaker pause to watch the snow fall in the forest.
The speaker thinks his or her horse must find it strange to stop so far from any signs of civilization. Indeed, they are surrounded only by the forest and a frozen lake, on the longest night of the year.
The horse shakes the bells on its harness, as if asking if the speaker has made a mistake by stopping. The only other sound besides the ringing of these bells is that of the wind and falling snowflakes, which the speaker likens to the feathers of goose down.
The speaker finds the woods very alluring, drawn both to their darkness and how vast and all-encompassing they seem. However, the speaker has obligations to fulfill elsewhere. Thus, though he or she would like to stay and rest, the speaker knows there are many more miles to go before that will be possible.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” Themes
Nature vs. Society
In “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening,” the speaker describes stopping to watch the snow fall while riding a horse through the woods at night. While alone in the forest, the speaker reflects on the natural world and its implicit contrast with society. Though Frost’s poem resists a definitive interpretation, the natural world it depicts is at once “lovely” and overwhelming. The fact that it seemingly lures the speaker to linger in the dark and cold suggests that nature is both a tempting and a threatening force, a realm that resists people’s efforts to tame it while also offering respite from the demands of civilized life.
The poem presents the natural world as distinctly separate from human society. The poem begins with the speaker thinking about who owns the property he is passing through—“Whose woods these are I think I know”—yet it’s clear that there's no one there to actually stop the speaker from trespassing. The owner’s “house is in the village,” meaning “he will not see” the speaker. While this owner may think the woods belong to him, he can’t control who passes by “his” land any more than he can stop the woods from “fill[ing] up with snow.” The land owner’s absence and futility, in turn, suggest that the human impulse to dominate the natural world is misguided.
The complete lack of signs of civilization, meanwhile, further emphasizes the distance between society and nature. There are no farmhouses nearby, and the only sound apart from the “harness bells” of the speaker’s horse is that of the wind. Though the speaker acknowledges that, at least conceptually, he or she stands on someone else’s woods, the physical isolation indicates the impotence of conceptual structures like ownership in the first place. In other words, people can say they "own" land all they want, but that doesn't really mean anything when those people aren't around. Far from the sights and sounds of the village, the speaker stands alone “Between the woods and frozen lake” on the “darkest evening of the year.” Together all these details again present nature as a cold and foreboding space distinct from society.
At the same time, however, the woods are “lovely” enough that they tempt the speaker to stay awhile, complicating the idea of nature as an entirely unwelcoming place for human beings. Indeed, though the setting seems gloomy, the speaker also recounts the “sweep / Of easy wind and downy flake.” This language makes the setting seem calm and comforting. The speaker finds the wind “easy” or mellow and the snowflakes “downy,” like the soft feathers that fill a blanket or pillow. Finally, in the final stanza, the speaker definitively says, “The woods are lovely, dark and deep.” This suggests the speaker’s particular interest in the solitude that the woods offers.
Though the speaker knows that he or she “has promises to keep”—suggesting certain societal demands that pull the speaker to continue—the woods are a tempting place to stop and rest. For a moment, the speaker is able to pause for no reason other than to simply watch the falling snow. However raw and cold, then, nature also allows for the kind of quiet reflection people may struggle to find amidst the stimulation of society.
Social Obligation vs. Personal Desire
Though the speaker is drawn to the woods and, the poem subtly suggests, would like to stay there longer to simply watch the falling snow, various responsibilities prevent any lingering. The speaker is torn between duty to others—those pesky “promises to keep”—and his or her wish to stay in the dark and lovely woods. The poem can thus be read as reflecting a broader conflict between social obligations and individualism.
This tension between responsibility and desire is clearest in the final stanza. Although “the woods are lovely,” the speaker has other things to which he or she must attend. This suggests that the speaker is only passing through the woods on some sort of business—which, in turn, helps explain how unusual it is that the speaker has stopped to gaze at the forest filling with snow. Indeed, the fact that the speaker’s horse must “think it queer”—even a “mistake”—that they’re stopping implies that the speaker’s world is typically guided by social interaction and regulations, making solitary, seemingly purposeless deeds especially odd. The speaker doesn’t seem to be the kind of person who wastes time or reneges on his promises. However much the speaker might like to stay in the “dark and deep” woods, then, he or she must continue on, once again prioritizing responsibility to others and social convention.
Of course, the speaker seems to show some ambivalence toward these social obligations. The speaker subtly juxtaposes his or her interest in the woods with regret about his or her duties to others: the woods are lovely, “but I have promises to keep.” The promises seem to be a troublesome reality that keeps the speaker from doing what he or she actually wants to do—that is, stay alone in the woods for a little while. Indeed, the specific language that the speaker uses to describe the woods suggests he or she isn’t quite ready to leave. They are “lovely, dark and deep,” implying the woods contain the possibility for respite from the comparatively bright and shallow world of human society. Social responsibilities thus inhibit the chance for meaningful reflection.
Additionally, the image of snow’s “downy flake” suggests that the speaker is as attracted to the woods as one might be to a comfortable bed. In fact, the speaker seems wearied by travel and social obligation, and the woods seem to represent his or her wish to rest. But this wish cannot be realized because of the oppressive “miles to go,” which must be traveled as a result of duty to others (i.e., in order to "keep" those "promises"). Thus, the final lines may suggest the speaker’s weariness both toward the physical journey that remains and the social rules that drive that very journey forward in the first place.
Ultimately, we don't know if the speaker satisfies his or her social duties or remains in the woods. On the one hand, the admittance of having “promises to keep” can be read as the speaker accepting that social obligations trump individual wishes. Yet it's also possible to read the final lines as the speaker’s continued hesitation; perhaps the speaker is thinking about the miles left to go but not yet doing anything about it, instead remaining torn between the tiresome duties of society and the desire for individual freedom that is manifested in the woods.
Hesitation and Choice
Throughout the poem, the speaker seems to be stuck in a space in between society’s obligations and nature’s offer of solitude and reflection. Though the speaker reflects on the possibilities offered by each, he or she is ultimately never able to choose between them. In fact, the speaker’s literal and figurative placement seems to suggest that choice itself might not even be possible, because societal rules and expectations restrict the speaker's free will. In other words, beyond exploring the competing pulls of responsibility and personal desire on the speaker, the poem also considers the nature—or mere possibility—of choice itself.
The speaker starts and ends the poem in a state of hesitation. In the first line, the speaker says, “Whose woods these are I think I know,” a statement which wavers between a sure declaration (“I know”) and doubt (“I think”). This may suggest that the central conflict of the poem will be the speaker’s battle with uncertainty. The physical setting of the poem, in which a speaker stops partway through a journey, mirrors this irresolution, finding the speaker neither at a destination nor a point of departure but rather somewhere in between.
The speaker also notably pauses “between the woods and frozen lake”—literally between two landmarks. On top of that, the speaker has stopped on the “darkest evening of the year.” If we understand this to mean the Winter Solstice, then the poem also occurs directly between two seasons, autumn and winter. Thus, the speaker is physically poised on the brink between a number of options, suggesting the possibility of choice between physical worlds, and, later in the poem, between duty to others and a personal wish to rest in solitude.
However, it's unclear in the end if the speaker chooses to fulfill his or her "promises" or merely accepts the obligation to do so as an incontrovertible fact of life; that is, whether he or she actively makes a choice to continue or accepts that there is no choice at all. Though the speaker seems to indicate in the end that he or she will continue on and keep his or her promises, this doesn’t seem to be a straightforward decision. In fact, it may not be a decision at all, but rather an embittered consent to the rules of societal life. The speaker may very well wish to stay in the “lovely” woods, but is ultimately unable to do so.
However, we can also read the final stanza as demonstrating that the speaker hasn't left the woods yet. Although he or she has obligations, there are “miles to go,” and the dreamy repetition of the final lines could suggest that there are either too many miles left to travel, or even that the speaker is slipping into sleep—effectively refusing to make a choice (or implicitly choosing to stay, depending on your interpretation).
Thus, it is possible to read the entire poem as embodying a moment of hesitation, wavering between two poles but never leaning toward one or the other. This would further complicate the outcome of the poem, resisting a definitive reading and suggesting that the tensions between society and nature, and between obligation and individualism, are never black-and-white, but constantly in a murky state of flux.
